Terrorized Muslims by the tens of thousands overwhelmed aid workers in an ill-prepared emergency camp here today, part of a swelling human tide propelled by the continuing Bosnian Serb drive across eastern Bosnia.

The refugees from the ostensibly protected, now conquered enclave of Srebrenica spent the day camped in open fields under a blistering sun, begging food, water and medicine from aid workers who had little and wailing over the fates of husbands, sons, fathers and brothers taken away by Bosnian Serb forces.

Their accounts of Serbian cruelty -- of throats slit and women raped before the women and children were packed on buses for a mass ethnic deportation -- were impossible to verify, but they held the refugees in an emotional grip.

Few of the refugees could speak of their experiences without breaking down in tears. It was all but impossible to find any who did not say they had seen evidence of atrocities or suffered them.

Another woman who appeared to be about 20 made her way into a grove of trees during the night and hanged herself. Her body was taken to the police station, where it remained unclaimed and unidentified.

"My six brothers were all killed," lamented Saka Bezirovic, 32, who like many here assumed the worst about the fates of family members who had been taken away by the Serbs. "We expected the U.N. soldiers to protect us because we were in a safe zone, but they couldn't stop the Serbs. Last week we were living almost normally, and now, suddenly, we have no homes or families. We are completely lost. We expect nothing and hope for nothing."

Relief administrators with long experience in the Balkans said the "ethnic cleansing" of Srebrenica has sparked one of the worst humanitarian crises since the Bosnian war began three years ago.

"It's a huge mess," said Lars Morkholt, a European Union observer from Denmark. "We were completely unprepared for this. The humanitarian effort is totally disorganized. No one has food for these people or clothing or medicine for them. All we can do is just dump them in a field and more or less leave them there. It's a terrible situation."

At the Tuzla airport, United Nations peacekeepers have erected a tent city where 3,800 refugees are living. But many times that number are kept under trees and in corn fields outside, and bus loads continued to arrive today.

With most refugees forced to use a few shallow streams for washing and drinking and as latrines, and it seemed likely that disease would soon begin spreading.

Srebrenica had been declared a "safe area" by the United Nations, but Bosnian Serb forces, claiming that the town had not been fully demilitarized as required, swept down upon it Tuesday and seized it.

Sabida Mehonovic, 26, said Serbian soldiers stripped her of her earrings and her wedding ring before allowing her to board a bus for Tuzla. She is caring for her two children and two others whose parents disappeared during Tuesday night's rampage in Srebrenica. Her husband is missing, and she believes that he was killed.

"Most of us had had no sleep and no food for three days and nights," Mrs. Mehonovic, who is eight months pregnant, said through her tears. "People are beginning to go mad, especially the children who saw their fathers and brothers killed."

According to accounts of refugees, hundreds of men were killed by Serbs after their victory. Thousands were reportedly taken away for what the Serbs said would be investigation for possible war crimes, while others managed to escape.

Several hundred refugees found shelter from the sun in a concrete airplane hanger. Among them was one of the few men to emerge from Srebrenica, 67-year-old Mustafa Kospic. As he told his horrific tale, involving events during a bus ride from the village of Srebrenica to other parts of the enclave, before the sexes were separated, people gathered around, nodding to confirm it and adding details of their own.

"Outside Srebrenica, the buses stopped and Serbs took young men and women off," Mr. Kospic said. "They made us watch while they cut the men's throats and raped the women. We saw this happen. I watched them slit throats."

Said Halilcevic, a local Muslim man who spent much of Thursday and Friday talking with refugees, said: "It's beyond words. These people have lived through an unbelievable terror. Something completely evil happened in Srebrenica."

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A version of this article appears in print on July 15, 1995, on Page 1001004 of the National edition with the headline: CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS: THE REFUGEES; Terrorized Human Tide Overwhelms Relief Camp. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe